Friday, December 26, 2014

With the New Year approaching and many on vacation, I thought
that I would look back over the last year of Healthcare Marketing Matters (HMM),
which led to my own top 15 for 2014 based on page views. Healthcare
changes so quickly now it seems like yesterdays thoughts are ancient history. But more often than not, those strategic writings
show how valuable healthcare marketing can be in a time of great change.

A major milestone was crossed when Healthcare Marketing Matters
passed the 200,000 pages viewed mark. HMM
continues to be read in 52 counties and in order of the most readership: United
States; United Kingdom; France; India; Russia; Canada; Germany; Norway, China; and Indonesia. Average page views are over 5,000 per month.

With that in mind, here
are the top 15 posts from 2014 in Healthcare Marketing Matters. Thank you for
reading. I know I am looking forward to another exciting year of change in 2015
as healthcare becomes more retail focused, and consumer friendly then it was on
2014. After all, it’s an evolution that is gaining increasing velocity and way
past the tipping point for slowing down or stopping.

Sunday, December 21, 2014

New Year's Resolutions
can play a part in most everyone's life to foster positive and maybe lasting
change. To lose weight. To live life
more fully. Be a better husband, wife, or significant other etc. And
many more that I have missed. But have you ever considered New Year Resolutions
as a part of your business and managerial life?

In grand anticipation
of 2015, and the potential it holds for taking healthcare marketing in hospitals and health systems to the next level, consider if you will some resolutions
for 2015.

In the
spirit of David Letterman here goes:

Top 10 Healthcare Marketing Resolutions for 2015

10. Focus on innovatively meeting the needs of the
healthcare consumer. Through market research drive programmatic and service delivery
changes

9. Learn from the healthcare retail giants like
Walgreens, CVS Caremark and others. Healthcare continues to evolve into a
semi-retail market and what has worked in the past won’t work anymore.

8. Marry price to outcomes and be transparent to
the healthcare consumer. Provide and prove value.

7. Integrate traditional, online and social
marketing strategies. All are complementary to one another and drive multiple
successes.

6. Lead!

5. Be a marketing thought leader- in the organization
and to external peers.

4. Focus on marketing accountability, resource
utilization efficiency and effectiveness. Use the data to demonstrate ROI. If
it doesn’t work then stop doing it.

3. Stop
using the words "unique", "state-of-the-art", and anything
that is considered “buzz word" terminology in marketing
communications. Unique can be duplicated
easily. State-of-the-art refers to yesterday's systems as things change so fast.
Buzz words quickly fall out of favor.

2. Bridge the divide between clinical, operations
and marketing.

1. Serve and be humble, for working in healthcare
is a privilege, not a right.

Merry
Christmas or Happy Holidays and Happy New Year! Best wishes for a prosperous
year in 2015.

Sunday, December 14, 2014

That time of the year is upon us where predictions of things
to come become all the rage. Prognostications, crystal balls, and ominous calls
for the end of the world as we know it will continue to some degree.

Continuation of hospital bankruptcies and closures, mergers,
affiliations, disruptive innovations, healthcare consumerism, mHealth, and entrants
of non- traditional healthcare providers, will continue unabated pushing hospitals
and health system further down the food chain, threatening their very survival.

Okay, so I was just Captain Obvious and that’s what we all know
the future holds. Now that being said, these trend continuations from 2014 don’t
necessarily mean that hospitals and health systems will adapt.

Will healthcare marketing in 2015 really be any different than
the last 30 years? Probably not, but to survive the changes coming in 2015,
that will only increase in velocity and intensity, there are strategies and tactics that healthcare marketing need to embrace for growth and survival, by leading
change in their respective healthcare enterprises.

Remember that growth is good. If the healthcare enterprise
is not growing but circling the wagons, like so many do, then last one out turn
the lights off. Here the trends and challenges as I see them for 2015 in
healthcare marketing.

1.Healthcare consumerism. That means brand positioning, experience, consumer
health needs, price and quality transparency is the answer. It’s the only way
to respond should the healthcare enterprise desire growth and success.

2.Retail medicine.
That has taken a major turn with the introduction of some basic primary
care services beyond the sore throat, cold or flu. Especially with a tele-health
presence, physicians are now able to consult real time. It is more convenient to
the healthcare consumer, faster and cheaper then hospital based services. From a
market perspective, the healthcare enterprise needs to respond in the same fashion
by making the services of the healthcare enterprise more desirable, priced
appropriately and consumer need focused than hospital focused. Beat Walgreens
and others at their own game.

3.Social media. Its use will accelerate and grow in
influence during the healthcare consumer selection process. At a minimum
Facebook, Twitter, Yelp and Instagram are the vehicles of choice for the novice
organization. One to engage and dialogue. One to enhance the experience. One to
mange reputation. One to tell a visual story.

4.Price wars. They are coming considering that the
healthcare consumer now pays one-third of the cost of care. Look for opportunities
to lower prices and provide better care as a loss leader, for the more costly
and profitable healthcare enterprise services. Capture the healthcare consumer by
engagement, build the relationship and drive loyalty.

5.Content marketing. The story is important and it’s
how you influence the influencers. In markets that are undifferentiated, it’s
the way to differentiate not on clinical programs and services which all competitors
have but on the story. The story is different
from all others and can be used efficiently and effectively to drive engagement,
awareness and choice. Content that is changed timely, appropriate and fresh. Content
is not some of the time, but all of the time.

6.Innovation. Non-traditional entrants into the
market will drive further change the cost and delivery of healthcare services,
placing the healthcare enterprise at a competitive disadvantage. The only way to anticipate that is using
market research to discover and understanding the unmet needs of the healthcare
consumer. Then design the offerings at competitive prices, convenient and engaging
before someone else does. That means
changing the business development aspect from an internal inwardly focused
process to an external market focus.

7.Redistribution of marketing resources. Resource will
move from traditional print and electronic, to online with native advertising, social
media platforms, email, and blogging and to mobile. That is where the audience
is.

8.MHealth. Consumers
love it. Providers generally hate it. Venture capital private equity firms are
pouring billions into it. Look for more innovation
and acceptance that will drive the healthcare consumer further from the hospitals
and hospital based services. Healthcare
enterprises will get on the bandwagon, hopefully before it’s too late in their
markets.

9.Healthcare consumer engagement will move beyond
emails, wellness programs of little value and repeating what the healthcare enterprise
has always done, to dialogue and exchange of information in a manner and method
that the healthcare consumer desires.

10.Focus on growth.
This isn’t the build it and they will come growth, but growth that is based
relationships, manages experience and expectations and manages the demands of
the healthcare consumer to the right setting of care, at the right time, for
the right cost.

These are what I see as the 10 most important healthcare marketing
changes and challenges for 2015.

One may notice that the lines are blurring from
what can be viewed traditionally as a healthcare enterprise operational focus, to a market
driven focus. And that is the biggest marketing challenge.

Funny how that happens in a consumer driven semi-retail
healthcare market. Best of luck.

Saturday, December 6, 2014

It’s well documented that the healthcare consumer’s use of
online, mobile and social media, has been steadily increasing for a few years
now. Even though the growth has been nearly exponential across all age groups in adaption and use of the new
channels, hospitals have slowly adapted to effective utilization of the new marketing
channels. Back in 2010, the American
Hospital Association found that only 21 percent of hospitals were using social
media in some form, most notably Facebook and Twitter.

So let’s expand the discussion to include SEO and content
marketing, as well as shifting marketing resources and focus from traditional marketing
channels of print, broadcast, billboard etc., to social media, SEO and content
marketing. In the simplest of terms,
it’s all about being where the audience can be found.

Think of it this way:

Taking this a step further, these channels are living,
breathing entities. They have staying
power in the market environment, and provide a consistent presence for the
healthcare enterprise to be easily found, tell the brand story, engage,
influence choice, as well as manage experience. Can one realistically accomplish this with
just a focus on traditional marketing with a sprinkling of social media? Now
that being said, I am not throwing traditional marketing under the bus. There
is still a place for those marketing channels.

This isn’t innovative thought. It’s really about the
exercise of marketing leadership in hospitals and health systems, and leading
change. As written before, healthcare is
changing from a provider- dominated build it and they will come model, to a
semi-retail healthcare consumer choice model influenced by price, convenience
and experience. Those healthcare consumer needs and ways to reach them are
being increasingly dominated by non-traditional entrants into healthcare,
further pushing the hospital to the bottom of the food chain.

If I were a Vice President of Marketing in a hospital or
health system, 60 percent of my direct spend would be on SEO, social media and
content marketing. And the staff of the marketing department would reflect the
skills and expertise to carry out the tactical execution of that strategy.

Grow the healthcare enterprise brand and revenue through social
media, SEO and content marketing. Growth
is good.